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If you haven’t spent time scanning Social Solutions’ Ideas Portal, prepare yourself. You might find yourself spending hours perusing the hundreds of ideas and thinking “Why didn’t I think of that?” or, “I was having that exact problem just last week!”. Social Solutions has accelerated the development and deployment of new product enhancements and features in recent years and this includes a focus on user-submitted ideas. Just this week, Social Solutions deployed a host of small new features and enhancements,…

Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer keynoted the 2018 Impact Summit this week, discussing the Ballmer Group’s recent $69M investment in Social Solutions. His comments and presentation highlighted the foundation’s commitment to providing opportunities to youth and families. “Every kid deserves a chance at the American dream,” Ballmer said. In addition to expressing his appreciation of the myriad nonprofit professionals and organizations in the room, Ballmer’s presentation offered key insights into both the direction of Social Solutions as a company and…

The implementation process is arduous, detailed and complex. It’s nearly impossible to get it all right on the first try. For this reason, you must anticipate that there will be system corrections, additions, and new reporting needs following launch. For those of you still in implementation, a “soft launch” (having a group of users test the system for a few months) can limit the number of issues Post-Go Live, but it won’t catch everything. Post Go-Live, Administrators must budget a…

There is one implementation scenario that we have seen occur with a few organizations (fewer and fewer, thankfully) that is truly heartbreaking: an organization did not build a solid data culture, or the executive team did not set adequate expectations. Soon after implementation, users go from sparsely using their ETO system to abandoning it altogether. In the end, the organization will have spent tens of thousands of dollars, lost a year or so of time, and will have nothing to…

We tell every Treadwell client that it doesn’t matter how great of consultants we are; if the organization doesn’t have a well-trained, technically competent administrator, the data system is unlikely to succeed. For this reason, we always recommend that the organization focus on improving the administrator’s skills. Every hour invested in improving an administrator’s skills will return ten or more hours of time saved within the year. Administrators that are supported with training and reliable resources reach their full potential…

Having provided ETO consultation and services to hundreds of organizations over the past decade or more, we’ve found that there is a consistency in the life-cycle of an organization that implements any new software, including ETO. One such consistency is the Post-Go Live phase. The process of implementation is both similar to, but also very different from data system maintenance. In Implementation, the organization focuses on gathering requirements, building out a structure to support those requirements, and then training staff…

Nonprofits are held to a very high standard by funders and the public at large. Organizations must continually prove their outcomes to their stakeholders, and demonstrate funding is being well spent. With ETO in place, your nonprofit can track a substantial amount of data to show the impact your efforts are having, but sometimes that data becomes overwhelming. You must ensure that you acquire and retain high-quality data. If you aren’t focusing on the right data points—data that is crafted…

Social Solutions is gearing up to finish its 2018.1 release, and it promises to add some long anticipated and exciting new functionality for all ETO licensees! This release includes two enhancements that will make life much easier/better for just about every ETO organization: Barcode Check-In NEW Referrals Dashboard Part This is our first look at the new functionality, and we’ll add more information to this article based on your questions and comments. Check-in/Barcode Scanning ETO users have anxiously awaited the day…

AUSTIN, Texas–Social Solutions Global, the leading provider of impact and performance management software for human services agencies and nonprofit organizations, announced today an official agreement with Treadwell, a leading provider of implementation services for Efforts to Outcomes software. Treadwell is now a Certified Implementation Partner of SSG. Founded in 2014 by former Social Solutions employees, Treadwell works with non-profits and public sector organizations to improve ETO software reporting capabilities and configuration design. Through implementation assistance, consultation and ETO training, Treadwell…